Topic outline
-
How to Teach Online: Introduction
“Teaching online is completely different. There is no stage. You have no captive audience. You have no ability to lean on your physical presence and stagecraft as a teacher. What you do have is the wide world that the student is immersed in, and the student’s imagination and initiative. So that’s what you use.”
- Michael Feldstein, founder of eLiterate
Distance learning is a way of teaching and learning where students and teachers are separated by time or space, do not meet in a classroom, and use the Internet or alternate means of sharing course materials and communicating. It can refer to any sort of teaching that is done outside a traditional classroom, including paper-based correspondence courses or technology-supported elearning, like this course in DD Courses. It includes courses where a teacher is there to support students, and also courses students work through on their own without a dedicated instructor. Since the Internet is the most common way to offer distance learning, we will refer to technology-based systems for the most part, but the content we cover here is applicable for other distance learning choices as well.
In this course, we’ll cover how to decide if distance learning is the best choice for you and your students; distance learning options; and what goes into creating an effective distance learning course.
By the end of this course, you will know or be able to:
- Complete a learner analysis for your own teaching context
- Explain the elements of an effective learning outcome
- Explain which distance learning delivery options would work for your learners
- Identify advantages and disadvantages of different assessment options for a distance course
- Identify different approaches for creating course content and activities specifically for your learners
- Explain the advantages and disadvantages of creating your own course or reusing openly available courseware
- Identify ways to support learners in a distance learning environment
How it works
- This course consists of information for you to read, view, or listen to, as well as practice exercises and assignments, to help you learn about the topic.
- When you are finished with all the content on each page, click the arrow on the bottom right corner to move to the next page.
- There is a progress bar at the bottom that will show your progress through the course.
- When you have completed the course, you will have the option to generate a certificate of completion for download.
